Gotham Hard Fork: Monetary Policy Activated

On December 11, 2017, at block 5,000,000, the Ethereum Classic network activated the Gotham hard fork — implementing ECIP-1017's fixed monetary policy and beginning Era 2 of the emission schedule.

## What Changed

| Parameter | Before (Era 1) | After (Era 2) |
|-----------|----------------|----------------|
| Block reward | 5 ETC | 4 ETC |
| Uncle reward | 0.15625 ETC (1/32) | 0.125 ETC |
| Era | 1 | 2 |
| Activation block | — | 5,000,000 |

The 20% reduction from 5 ETC to 4 ETC per block marked the first "fifthening" — the beginning of ETC's deflationary emission curve.

## Technical Details

Gotham implemented:

- **ECIP-1017**: Block reward reduction to 4 ETC per block, with proportional uncle/nephew reward reductions
- **ECIP-1010**: Difficulty bomb delay, removing the inherited Ethereum difficulty bomb that would have made mining progressively harder

## Why "Gotham"

ETC network upgrades are named after locations in fiction and mythology, distinguishing them from Ethereum's naming conventions. Gotham was the first upgrade with a distinctly ETC identity.

## Significance

This was ETC's first monetary policy event — proving that the community could coordinate a protocol change through the ECIP process and activate it across the network without incident. Every ~2.5 years thereafter, the block reward reduces by another 20%.

## Era Timeline

| Era | Block Range | Reward | Date |
|-----|-------------|--------|------|
| 1 | 0 – 5M | 5 ETC | Jul 2015 |
| 2 | 5M – 10M | 4 ETC | Dec 2017 |
| 3 | 10M – 15M | 3.2 ETC | Mar 2020 |
| 4 | 15M – 20M | 2.56 ETC | Apr 2022 |
| 5 | 20M – 25M | 2.048 ETC | May 2024 |

[View the next block reward reduction →](/research/supply)